Chapter 24 Crimson Lion
Crimson Lion
Shadow
Jake tosses my machete out the window and (presumably) into the river.
But little does he know I have a second one on me.
When I saw Man-ho’s fleet vehicles in the front of the Fine Bastian Club, I put it all together very quickly.
I didn’t go through four years of military college, then two years of special forces training to be a fucking idiot. He’d come for Ondine.
Jake had lost his mind the day Ondine went to the city to get her haircut, and it didn’t take long for me to realize he’d feared for her.
The omegas that had been taken were all taken near Chinatown, which is in the center of the city, which narrows it down to one horrible man—Alpha Lee Man-ho.
Cynthia, who works intimately with Man-ho, saw Ondine in our hotel room.
Unbonded, young, beautiful—but she didn’t take into account her affiliations.
And maybe they didn’t take that into account because the Meier Protection Group is not openly courting her. We are temporarily contracted. We set ourselves up for this to happen.
A temporary placement is either a trial or a hormone balance therapy. We are more so the latter. We have very little claim on her.
Legally speaking.
But I don’t really care what’s legal when the alpha in me is snapping his jaws and throwing his body against the confines of its mortal flesh to seek absolution.
Man-ho took my omega for a scent test. He wanted to take her from me. From my alphas. He dies.
Tonight.
Jake and I were at the school and at his residence. That leaves the Crimson Lion the best bet on where the dead-man-walking ran off to.
As soon as I hear that Ondine slipped into bond-sickness after the scent test, that does it for me.
I open the car door and roll out. Jake yells after me.
But it’s not like I haven’t done this before.
He keeps driving, like a good alpha, to his omega.
Ondine doesn’t need me in her nest. She needs me to enact her revenge.
I’m scraped up a little, but I leap to my feet and get off the riverfront bypass.
I wish I could contact Sabbies. He’s great with directions.
He’d be able to easily tell me how to get to the Crimson Lion from here.
I have to take a second to orient myself by running down some streets.
I finally get my coordinates right and then keep running to Chinatown.
The Crimson Lion is not just a restaurant.
It’s a market square with several restaurants above and below the square.
Anything, from a quick lunch at windows to fine dining.
When Freddie met with him the other day, it was in the fine dining room.
But I bet anything he’ll be at his more regular haunt in the back of the 24/7 cafe.
I slow my pace so I can start regulating my heart rate and get a smart hold on my breath. I don’t want to be red in the face or neck when I meet a powerful alpha. I need to appear cool.
I pump my fists to force the blood out of them.
I round the corner. The street signs change from English to hanzi, Chinese characters.
The streetlights turn from cool to warm.
The sounds and smells all shift to feel like home.
I grew up nearby here. My parents moved a few times, so it’s not home now, but it still feels like my childhood.
I’m single-minded, though, so I don’t let it distract me.
I enter the Crimson Lion market square. The night market is open and crowded tonight.
I mark all my exits. I locate where all of Man-ho’s security is posted.
They are here to keep certain folks out and thefts to a minimum.
Or to settle disputes. Not one of them notices me.
The cafe is nearly empty. When I enter, two betas posted at the door and try to give me a mean-mug to indicate I need to leave.
If I were there for tea or soup, it would work.
But I’m here for their boss. I stand between them right in front of the entrance, in a strong position.
My black duster is open, showing off my suit and tie.
My hair is tied tightly at the back of my neck. My hands are empty.
“Alpha Lee Man-ho,” I call out in a big, powerful voice.
I lace the sound with my alpha bark. It’s enough to showcase I have power, though it doesn’t really do anything.
There’s a curtain at the back of the cafe that I know leads to another room.
One where he is most likely settled. “It is Shadow Meier, half-brother to Freddie Wong, and alpha to Omega Ondine. I’ve come to talk to you. ”
Two older alphas emerge from the back. I resist the urge to smile triumphantly as they nod their head to the back, indicating I can enter.
I make sure to look each one in the eye.
I want them to know I know their faces. They stop me before going through the curtain so they can pat me down.
They find a holstered gun at my ankle and my ribs.
I pull them out and hand them over. My Glock and my J-frame. It’s fine. They didn’t find my machete.
My J-frame isn’t even loaded.
They finish their inspection and hold the curtain open for me.
I tell them thank you and enter the moody, low-ceilinged room.
It’s still not the room I need. Nothing illegal happens here.
Just thugs who want privacy. I continue to the back and walk down a set of stairs.
At the bottom, a smiling young woman greets me.
She opens the door to the realm of the underworld.
Gambling tables. Unregulated drug sales and use. Prostitution. Strippers.
But I zero in on Lee Man-ho at the back, sitting in a round booth.
I can smell at least two omegas in the room.
Plenty of alphas. And the rest betas. Mostly men.
They want the people in here contained. There’s only one way in and one way out.
But Man-ho wouldn’t be in a room like that.
I’d guess the curtain behind his booth is holding an exit.
I’d also guess the part of the room where two beta bodyguards are hovering is near another exit.
I note the camera since the guards dart their eyes to it without thinking.
“Alpha Wong,” Man-ho calls out to me as I stalk to his table. The rest of the tables and the platforms of dancing girls go quiet. The DJ lowers the music.
“It’s Meier.”
“My apologies, Alpha Meier. Didn’t realize you let yourself get leashed. Is it a degradation kink? Alphas that kneel to lesser alphas have always fascinated me. I think it comes down to sexual depravity. Wouldn’t you say?”
God, I forgot how chatty this mother fucker is. As quick as a lightning strike, I pull a tactical throwing knife and lodge it into the table in front of Man-ho. The other patrons with him jump up and run out of the booth, but he stays put. Unaffected.
“You took my omega and subjected her to a scent test.”
“I did,” he says proudly. “And I’ll do it again, Alpha Meier. I will find her a match among my men. You cannot stop me with your little knives or your scary bark.”
Silence sits between us. I kick my eyebrow up, happy he’s given me a chance to talk. I thought for sure he’d launch into another speech. “No, you will not. Not only will I demand your punishment right here and right now. But you will never come near my omega ever again.”
He looks so cool as he clicks his tongue and asks, “You won’t demand I stop trying to sever the head from the shoulders of your mother’s alpha, Senator Wong?”
I guess he’s right to point out I came here for Ondine, and not Senator Wong.
Again, he lets silence sit between us.
He’s stalling me.
He is afraid of me! The thought is going to make my ego huge. Enough talking then. I throw two more knives at him. Both entering his shoulders. He falls back into the false door behind him, but I’m already leaping across the table to fall into the door with him.
We crash down a fucking chute that leads into an adjacent hallway. I’ve got my knees tucked up, so when we crash into the hallway, I just need to pop them out to kick him with both feet in the stomach.
He gurgles and grunts as I get my footing back and roll away.
When I stand, I have my machete in my fist. He’s not standing up, though. He’s crumpled up on the ground. Oh my god. He’s knocked out. Before I can second guess myself, I put away my machete and haul the man up. His limp giant body is near impossible to move, but I’m running on pure adrenaline.
I get him into an empty office and shut the door. Keeping the light off. I pull him onto a chair and tie his legs and arms to it with cabling from a box near the door.
Then I spit on him.
I call Jake.
I need him to decide if we take a finger, a hand, or I just end this now and kill him.